Golden Mistake
by dreamer9981
Summary: She is the Golden Girl of the Weyr, but underneath the smiling exterior grave doubts fester and prey at her mind. They say the dragons are never wrong, but sometimes she wonders.


Author's Note: Anne McCaffrey owns everything, I'm just borrowing her world for my own enjoyment (and hopefully yours too). Questions, comments, criticism, praise, and everything in between is welcome, as always. Enjoy.

**Golden Mistake**

They tell me: _It's not your fault._ They all tell me it was a mistake. A horrible, tragic, sickening mistake, but a simple mistake nonetheless. After all, he was only a bluerider. Not even a full rider yet, just a weyrling. A weyrling that made a common mistake while ferrying firestone in a common, everyday Threadfall. They smile their sympathetic smiles and pat me on the shoulder and raise toasts to their fallen comrade, but they don't care. Not really.

They don't understand why my smiles don't come as readily, my jokes fall flat, there are shadows under my eyes. I hear them talking about me around corners and at other tables in the dining caverns when I'm eating alone. They say: _She's taking it awfully hard, isn't she? She didn't know the boy, did she? Why isn't our Golden Girl smiling anymore?_

That's what they've always called me: their Golden Girl. Ever since I came into the world smiling and bouncing and giggling with my curls of yellow gold and sky blue eyes, they adored me. It was easy to become the pet of the Weyr as a child, always willing to scrub a dragon and hanging around underfoot during wing meetings. No one ever had the heart to turn me away. It was even easier to be the girl that every boy wanted when we got older. It took a simple walk by the Weyr Lake for a search dragon to notice me and decide I was perfect for the next Hatching.

Easiest of all was Kilrith. She hatched in a cascade of golden shards and didn't even look at the other hopeful girls. We exchanged a glance and were bonded together forever. Nothing mattered beyond that multi-faceted gaze, not the cheering of the crowd or the cries of the other newly-Impressed pairs. Every eye was on us.

Easy, too, going from adored child to hero of the Weyr. As the first weyrbred girl in living memory to Impress a queen, I became a role model for all the other young girls who dreamed of glory and a golden hide. Boys who felt like they never had a chance at a hatchling started to dream bronze gilded dreams. Lower caverns workers who felt unappreciated and neglected and drudges who cursed their lot in life thought: _At last, someone who will understand. Someone who has walked where we walk and rinsed dirty dishes and cleaned latrines. Someone who will keep our best interests in mind._

And so we were the Golden Girls. We sailed through training, Kilrith and I. She grew large and sleek and more luminescent with every passing day. There was nothing we couldn't conquer, and if ever I had trouble there was always an enterprising classmate willing to help teach me _betweening _coordinates or help me memorize the map of Keroon or perfect the stitches in my harness.

Upon graduation we took up the mantle of the junior gold pair of the Weyr, flying in the Queen's Wing and wielding the Agenothree flamethrowers to char Thread from the sky. Occasionally the Weyrwoman required my assistance in matters pertaining to the running of the Weyr, but these occurrences were rare. With three more mature golds, there was little to do other than care for Kilrith, fly Threadfall, and socialize.

Little wonder they ask why the light has gone out of my eyes. They don't realize that I carry a secret close to my heart.

It _is _my fault.

B'vey and his blue Horvith were ferrying firestone along with the other senior weyrlings. One of the low flight greens called for a firestone refill and Horvith was the one to answer the call. Eagerly he took to the air and delivered the firestone, managing the toss as if he'd done it for turns. When a patch of Thread neared them, they did exactly as they'd been taught in weyrling training and blinked _between_, letting the green flame it to char.

Horvith came out from _between _and started an easy descent, checking that no other riders needed firestone. As he approached, I knew he hadn't noticed the rare trail of Thread spinning disarmingly down. Kilrith spotted it and charged forward. I thought: _Never let it be said that the Golden Girls let Thread through on their watch!_

I also thought there would be plenty of room between Horvith and the Thread to flame it. When the Thread took an unexpected turn, I adjusted the flamethrower without thinking to accommodate the new flight path. I didn't check the nearby airspace.

It was only when I heard the terrible scream that I realized B'vey and Horvith hadn't seen the Thread shift and had flown right into the mass of liquid flame and ravenous Thread.

The screaming was horrible, as was their chaotic, spinning descent towards the distant ground. Worst of all was the silence that reigned when they blinked _between _one final time and the stunned, grieving voice in which Kilrith announced that: _Horvith is no longer_.

It is not the secret of my fatal mistake that haunts me. Conversation with the Weyrwoman and long, tortured sessions with Kilrith have convinced me that no rider is perfect. We all make mistakes and tragedy is the silent burden all dragonriders must shoulder at one time or another. Kilrith insists that Horvith would have been disastrously scored even if my flamethrower had been nowhere nearby.

Scant comfort when the sight of a blazing blue bonfire wakes me on most nights.

But that is not the secret that I guard so carefully. There is another fear, one much more insidious and potentially much more devastating.

I have begun to fear that my darling, precious girl made a mistake when she chose me on the sands nearly five turns ago.

It is not the death of Horvith that haunts me but the slow realization that I am ill equipped to ever lead a Weyr. I have no head for figures. I don't understand tithing or how to even begin to organize a newly-received tithe from the holds. I can't order people around or tell them what to do, because rarely do _I _know what to do. I have never been politically-minded. I am supposed to organize supplies for the infirmary, the simplest of a Weyrwoman's jobs, and yet somehow, sevenday after sevenday, they have too much of one herb and not enough of another and somehow it can all be traced back to me. Kilrith remembers coordinates better than I do. My harnesses never fit right and always need re-doing by patient tanners.

I can't even control Kilrith when she takes to the sky is her mating flights. Her will is much, much stronger than mine and she eats too much of her kills, scorning the hot blood for the dripping, fat-laden entrails. The heavy meat weighs her down and lets any wily bronze catch her, rather than the strongest and most worthy. _Fourteen eggs _from her last flight, and this when the other queens are laying thirty or forty mid-pass!

Kilrith knows something is wrong. She asks: _Why do you worry so much? We are together and that is all that matters. I love you._

And I smile, briefly, and return her love as whole-heartedly as ever. And I put a new smile on my face and play dice with the youngest, brightest bronzeriders. I magnanimously allow weyrbrats to help with the considerable task of scrubbing and oiling Kilrith. I feign reluctance when they shout for me to sing on cold winter evenings and wear my best dress for the dancing at Turn's End, for there is always someone who wants to dance with me. I pretend that it matters not at all when a brown (a _brown!_) catches Kilrith in her next flight. I also pretend not to notice when the Weyrwoman and the other goldriders complain about my ineptitude in carrying out the simplest of tasks in running the Weyr. They whisper together: _After all,_ _she is young, and so very sweet._

I go on being the Weyr's Golden Girl, and I never let anyone, not even Kilrith, know the truth.

I am not a Golden Girl at all but simply a Golden Mistake.


End file.
